In preparation of upcoming developments on two growing commercial corridors in Hattiesburg - a new bridge on East Hardy Street and overpasses on Hall Avenue - Hattiesburg City Council members recently accepted a proposal for services related to development regulations and design standards for those areas.
The services, which will be performed by Emerge Community Planning & Strategy, will look into the possibility of Commercial Overlay Corridor Districts, which help spur development while supporting and enhancing the quality of life of the surrounding neighborhoods. As part of that process, officials will seek to get public input from residents who live or work along those corridors.
“There’s a lot of public engagement involved,” said Andrew Ellard, director of the city’s Urban Development Department. "Because this overpass in particular has the potential for such a regional impact, our engagement group will need to reach beyond these immediate neighborhoods and into others, all over the eastern and central parts of the city.
“There are a lot of dynamics to the area that are kind of interesting - you have portions of the area that are in a flood zone, you have portions of the area that are historic preservation districts. There are a lot of residential areas, but you’ve also got a key commercial corridor. So hopefully this study will help establish some guidelines moving forward, for what the community wants to see in the redevelopment in the area.”
The early stages of the project are expected to begin within the next couple of weeks. As part of that, consultants will look into some of the city’s existing planning documents, such as comprehensive plans, land development codes, and historic guidelines.
Officials are expected to consider existing conditions; feasibility of walkable, functional neighborhoods and mixed-use districts; redevelopment opportunities that support an economically viable and sustainable community; character and history; design guidelines; implementation language; and robust public participation.
“They’ll kind of familiarize themselves with the baseline of where we are now,” Ellard said. “We’ll have some visits from the consultant where we’ll get out into the community, drive along certain areas and meet with stakeholders.
“We’ll start to set up some neighborhood meetings and things like that in the coming months. The whole process is supposed to take about 10 months.”
The City of Hattiesburg was recently awarded a series of grants for the upcoming bridge and overpasses.
Part of that includes $15.2 million in funding from the Mississippi Department of Transportation for a new East Hardy Street bridge that will connect Petal and Hattiesburg over the Leaf River. The project - which is a collaboration between the City of Petal, the City of Hattiesburg and Forrest County - will see a new roadway beginning on East Hardy Street just east of Lee Street before going over the river just south of the current bridge. The roadway will stop just north of Carterville Road in Petal.
The current bridge, which sees approximately 10,000 vehicles per day, will remain open to traffic until the new bridge is finished. The design will feature archways at both ends with the words “Forrest County” on the front.
Rather than demolishing the existing bridge, which is more than 70 years old, officials have decided to maintain it and transform it into a pedestrian bridge.
“I think it’ll be more aesthetically pleasing, obviously, and it’s great that (Hattiesburg) Mayor Toby Barker pushed to keep the old bridge,” Petal Mayor Tony Ducker said in a previous story. “There’s going to be some opportunities and some things that we can do on that bridge.
“There are some ideas about how we can connect the river parks to have another access point from Chain Park and the Petal River Park, so that could be pretty exciting. We’ve got some means to finance that kind of stuff, so we’re going to look at that going forward.”
Hattiesburg also received $13.22 million in funding from MDOT’s Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development grant - which will fund the Hall Avenue West overpass over the Norfolk Southern line - and $5.39 million in federal funding from MDOT’s Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements grant for the construction of the Hall Avenue East overpass over the Canadian National rail line. Those projects are expected to ease traffic jams caused by trains passing through or stopping in intersections.
Officials hope to break ground on the east overpass in mid-2021, with the west overpass following in 2022.
“The overpass on both sides of Hall Avenue will be a transformative project for the future of Hattiesburg and the region, as it fixes a decades-old traffic issue, finally enabling public safety vehicles to get to people faster, saving lives and property,” Barker said at a news conference. “It will also create more capacity and opportunity for economic development in downtown Hattiesburg, making it a destination instead of a cut-through."
